In a sales environment, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems may be used to store thousands or millions of sales order records. Distribution managers of ERP systems have a need to view historical and forecasted metrics of their sales data so that they can accurately provide a price and cost for their items. These metrics may include historical and forecasted revenue, profit, profit margin, cost, and price, and are preferably viewed in a graphical form that is easier for the manager to compare and analyze. In addition, any forecasted price, cost, and sales volume can be affected by a variety of variables with little or no warning (such as the cost of materials changing due to a disruption in supply). Managers have the desire to be able to view this data preferably in a graphical format and then be allowed to make what if changes to price, cost, and/or forecast sales volume to see how it effects their profit, and profit margin. It is also beneficial to be able to store these what if scenarios and then compare them to actual sales data at some point in the future.
Thus there is a need for ERP applications with the ability to perform large what-if scenarios over what may be many millions of sales order records on the fly.